Britain hit by graduate brain-drain

Britain has lost more skilled workers to the global "brain drain" than any other industrialised country, according to a report by the World Bank.

More than 1.44 million graduates have left the UK to work in countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia. That far outweighs 1.26 million immigrant graduates in the UK, leaving a net "brain loss" of some 200,000 people.

At 16.7 per cent – that's one in six graduates – the exodus is much bigger than any other major industrialised country. Despite its economic woes, France has lost just 3.4 per cent of its graduates, the lowest level of any large country.

Speaking to the Independent, Frederic Docquier, one of the report's authors, said: "It does show an economic problem for developed countries. For countries such as the UK, a brain drain is clearly a loss. It may impact the rate of growth and the number of innovations that create growth in the long-run."